By Tessa Wong

MORE trouble is brewing within the management of the Singapore Flyer.

The Straits Times understands that the German investors behind the tourist attraction launched a bid to remove Flyer chairman Florian Bollen last week.

They have apparently now abandoned the bid, for reasons which remain unclear. It is the second time within months that the investors have tried to oust a Flyer bigwig.

Earlier this year, they attempted to remove board director Peter Purcell, who is contesting the move in court and still holds the position.

The boardroom bust-ups point to dissatisfaction among investors about the management's stewardship of the attraction.

In the latest episode, the fund representing the investors sent warning notices to the Flyer's management.

One of the notices obtained by The Straits Times said Mr Bollen and two other board directors, Dr Thomas Bone-Winkel and Mr Edward Bollujit, had shown 'a clear failure to perform their duties or exercise their powers with the required standard of skill or expertise'.

Invoking a clause in the shareholder's agreement, the fund declared the trio removed and called for new directors to be appointed in their place.

Contacted yesterday, Mr Bollen said the warning notices were issued in error and had, accordingly, been withdrawn.

'The matter is closed,' he said.

The Flyer's management also said last night that it was aware of the action, but that the fund has since retracted these notices.

It stressed that it is still business as usual at the giant wheel.

'The board remains in its present composition. There is no repercussion on the attraction and no effect on day-to-day operations,' said a spokesman.

A representative from the private bank in charge of the investors' fund, Delbrueck Bethmann Maffei, declined comment and referred this newspaper to the Singapore Flyer.

It is unclear whether the investors' bid to unseat Mr Bollen and the two other directors would have succeeded even if they had not withdrawn it.

This is because they wield limited power despite having bankrolled more than 40 per cent of the money raised for the Flyer.

They had waived their voting rights in exchange for certain dividends, and may exercise these rights only if they had not been paid those dividends two years after the wheel's completion.

However, it is understood that the final notice of the wheel's completion - crucial to this transfer of power - has not been issued yet.

The spat is the latest to embroil the beleaguered attraction, starting from its much-publicised breakdown last December, which left passengers stuck for hours in its cabins.

It subsequently had to grapple with legal proceedings taken by tenants in the Flyer's complex.

Then a shareholder's report released in August noted that the attraction had sold less than half its projected target of 1.46 million tickets between January and July.

All these came on top of other legal squabbles initiated by Mr Purcell and an audio company.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.